Why is this happening? Lara Perez-Felkner, an Assistant Professor in FSU’s Higher Education Program and in the Department of Sociology, has the best answer I’ve seen. Many high school girls with strong math skills don’t believe they are good at math. And that belief keeps them from choosing college majors in engineering, computer science and physics.

Lara’s results were published in the journal Frontiers in Psychology. FSU has a news release here. The paper was coauthored by Lara’s students Samantha Nix and Kirby Thomas.